Novig, a business founded in 2021 by Harvard students Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah, has reached a $500 million valuation after raising $75 million in a Serie B funding round.
The New York-based company, which is backed by crypto-focused venture firm Pantera Capital, is aiming to compete with industry behemoths Polymarket and Kalshi by dominating the sports event contract space.
$75 million injection brings total raised to $105 million for Novig
It’s been a seismic few months for the company, which had previously raised $18 million in a Series A funding round in August 2025.
Cofounder Fortinsky explained how he hopes Novig will become the primary challenger to a sports betting industry that needs repairing.
He recently told Fortune: “We started the company because we felt sports betting was broken. Our mission from day one was to build a platform really built for modern sports bettors in the most consumer-friendly, the most engaging, and the most profitable way possible,
“Our basic bet as a company is that the median sports fan is far more likely to use an app whose brand and whose product is really built with sports in mind, rather than with crypto or war in South America.”
Approval by CFTC next on agenda for Novig
Last month, Novig applied to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Designated Contract Market under Ludlow Exchange LLC. Approval would allow it to offer federally regulated event contracts nationwide, joining existing DCMs such as Kalshi, Crypto.com and Polymarket.
The filing comes as CFTC Chair Michael Selig pushes to preserve federal authority over prediction markets. The agency recently filed an amicus brief arguing event contracts fall under its exclusive remit as derivatives governed by the Commodity Exchange Act.
The brief responds to growing state resistance, including disputes involving the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Several states argue certain sports-related contracts resemble unlicensed wagering, setting up a jurisdictional clash between state gaming regulators and federal derivatives oversight.
For Novig, federal registration could offer regulatory clarity and nationwide scale. If courts side with the CFTC, prediction markets may consolidate under a single framework, reshaping competition between sportsbooks and federally supervised exchanges and defining how sports event contracts are treated across the U.S. financial system.
Pantera explains reasons behind funding
Some investors have cast their backing of Novig not simply as a growth bet, but as a structural critique of the traditional sportsbook model. In the wake of Novig’s application to the CFTC, supporters argue federally regulated event contracts could offer a more transparent and capital-efficient alternative to state-licensed sportsbooks.
Pantera Capital, whose portfolio includes Coinbase and the Solana blockchain ecosystem, has framed Novig as part of a notable shift toward exchange-style markets. How that digital-asset theory aligns with a federally supervised sports prediction exchange remains an open question as regulators weigh jurisdictional boundaries.
Pantera investor Mason Nystrom argued that sports betting now drives the overwhelming majority of prediction market volume, claiming on X: “Sports betting accounts for the vast majority of prediction market volume, upwards of 90% on some major platforms.”
He characterized traditional sportsbooks as burdened by embedded margins and structural inefficiencies, contrasting them with peer-to-peer models that promise tighter spreads and greater price discovery.
Multicoin Capital partner Shayon Sengupta echoed that view, describing exchange frameworks as “strictly superior” from a market-design perspective. By allowing multiple market makers to compete rather than relying on a single house counterparty, proponents say federally regulated platforms could deliver deeper liquidity, provided courts ultimately affirm the CFTC’s authority over sports event contracts.
Prediction market entry latest pivot for Novig
Despite claims by Fortinsky that they started the company to fix sports betting, Novig has been through a few iterations before finding itself at this point.
It first explored operating as a state-licensed, real-money sports betting exchange,before switching to a sweepstakes-style model that enabled broader U.S. access without traditional sportsbook licenses. Its application to the CFTC marks a third phase, one aimed at securing nationwide reach through a federally regulated framework.
The shift aligns with a wider jurisdictional debate now unfolding between state gaming regulators and federal authorities. Novig’s timing suggests a bet that courts will ultimately affirm prediction markets as derivatives governed under the Commodity Exchange Act, rather than as state-regulated wagering products.
Like its venture backers, Novig has framed the federal route as more than regulatory arbitrage. Fortinsky has argued in public posts that exchange-style sports prediction markets can better align pricing, liquidity and incentives than fixed-odds sportsbooks that rely on bookmaker spreads.
It remains to be seen how successful Novig can be in the face of stiff competition.
